I'm more interested in a script which calculates weekly/monthly totals for all machines in a group, preferably something that could be put into an automated report.

Manually compiling all the time by viewing the agent logs would probably cost me more money than it would save me.

Legacy Forum Name: IT Procedures,
Legacy Posted By Username: nevesis

I'm a tech and can still appreciate the money made/saved by my time being entered. I have some work ethic and take pride in my job and all my time is entered throughout the day, it's not negotiable. If the client isn't paying, where is my paycheck going to come from? The incentive idea sounds nice and all, but sometimes that can cause bad competition between people. I agree with the idea that they either account for their time or they get fired (of course you have to go through the write-up process, at least in California).

And time should be entered for everything, meeting time, training etc. That way you know how much billable time you are using for various things and whether it is worth the return.

In addition to all that, if you don't have a good time accounting ticketing system in place, how do you know your customers needs are addressed. Don't just think about the money you are pissing away by not billing, think about the money that is pissed away by pissed off customers that fall through the cracks and go to someone else to get taken care of...

Legacy Forum Name: IT Procedures,
Legacy Posted By Username: Leadfoot

Our tech team have experience and skills that would be painful to replace, our customers know and trust them and their work ethos is such that they regularly go above and beyond for our company.

I couldn't imagine just firing techs could be that easy an equation. I guess times are tough so it's an employer's world at the moment, but if you've got good techs I think it is worth trying to keep them.

I like the 5 whys methodology. What aren't techs billing? Because A. Why A? Because B. Why B? Because C etc. Get to the root of the problem, understand it, and work on a way to increase productivity so that everyone wins - you make money, your staff like you and your job, and your customers are happy to smile and don't dispute your bills. Maybe I'm naive.

But I do like the idea of tracking actual time spent against reported time. Perhaps rather than being an act of sinister fraud perpertrated by staff that hate you and want to see money flying out the window, it is more of a matter of analysis, process and tracking. Tracking real versus actual will help to narrow the gaps.

Legacy Forum Name: IT Procedures,
Legacy Posted By Username: itmd

again, everyone has their own way of doing things but.....

we do all you can eat remote support and small discount for onsite.

Our SLA spells out Managed Services is not a MAC (move/add/change) so any restructure or addition, etc....are not part of all you can eat. Makes it easy to track.

While we have CW (new with it) we don't plan to review usage of time spent until after our 1st year. 10% of your clients will eat up most of your time, 90% will hardly generate a ticket a month so average it up and with the exception of the 1 PITA client you have and already know it, I choose not to overanalyze. You can't have all perfect clients, deal with the PITAs until it gets noticeable. I swear half our clients barely make a ticket a month so take the good with the bad. Focus on adding more nodes.....do the math, worry about adding more nodes and the rest is easy to fix.

My 2 cents.

Legacy Forum Name: IT Procedures,
Legacy Posted By Username: markmancini

far182

Make your techs account for 100% of their time (using something like Connectwise or Autotask). Track time by the minute and don't allow gaps. All time must be entered in realtime. Period. When you can get your team following this then your problem is solved.

this is cool except you waste 2 hours a day putting in time.

Legacy Forum Name: IT Procedures,
Legacy Posted By Username: boblzer0

boblzer0

this is cool except you waste 2 hours a day putting in time.

Then how do you get paid for the time you spend working? The amount of time it takes to document a case is totally billed againsted that client that they are working on. Someone has to pay for your techs time, if your a tech, someone has to be paid to pay you. Plain, simple.

Any company that does not document their work will simply not be in business in the long haul, either becuase they can not track their work from the past or becuase of lack of financial income.

When we put in Connectwise, we quickly found that "I" was giving away free time to clients. Why? Becuase I was too busy doing other things and "thought" I would remember the next day to do it.

Right.......

Don

Legacy Forum Name: IT Procedures,
Legacy Posted By Username: Don.Bentz

boblzer0

this is cool except you waste 2 hours a day putting in time.

How do you possibly do things then? You don't have your techs track their time? How do you bill with any accuracy?

And if you are absorbing the time it takes your techs to enter time, you shouldn't be. They may not be clicking around on the client's server, but filling in that ticket so that the client can see what was done and know that they were accurately billed is still "doing work" for the client. Here, the stop time button doesn't get clicked until the ticket details have been entered. Entering time is just part of the ticket.

Legacy Forum Name: IT Procedures,
Legacy Posted By Username: arobar

I disagree. First, I have them enter time while at the client site (this is called client documentation and is BILLABLE!!!), so the client when invoiced will have an accurate details of the site visit (what they were billed for).

Secondly, you tech shouldn't be spending 25% of his time entering time (2 hr out of a 8 hr day), if so you probably have someone blowing smoke up your dress and not working at thier full potential.

Legacy Forum Name: IT Procedures,
Legacy Posted By Username: boudj

arobar

How do you possibly do things then? You don't have your techs track their time? How do you bill with any accuracy?

And if you are absorbing the time it takes your techs to enter time, you shouldn't be. They may not be clicking around on the client's server, but filling in that ticket so that the client can see what was done and know that they were accurately billed is still "doing work" for the client. Here, the stop time button doesn't get clicked until the ticket details have been entered. Entering time is just part of the ticket.

i would just enter time in blocks without worrying about messing around with timestamps. it takes much more time. 8 hours a time without accounting for every minute. or else i got entries for answer the phone and going to the bathroom. unnecessary. i'm not saying you don't enter all your "time" but doing everything up to the minute is a little much.

Legacy Forum Name: IT Procedures,
Legacy Posted By Username: boblzer0

boblzer0

i would just enter time in blocks without worrying about messing around with timestamps. it takes much more time. 8 hours a time without accounting for every minute. or else i got entries for answer the phone and going to the bathroom. unnecessary. i'm not saying you don't enter all your "time" but doing everything up to the minute is a little much.

You are missing a TON of data by doing things this way. Your customers cannot see any kind of accurate representation for how much time was spent on an issue. Worse yet, you don't know what's going on inside your own company. You're giving your own techs the ability to screw you. If I could just say, "Yeah, I spent about 2 hours on that", I could have been screwing around on Facebook for half of that time. If there's no accountability, the productivity of your workforce is almost certainly reduced considerably.

Legacy Forum Name: IT Procedures,
Legacy Posted By Username: arobar

arobar is correct... it may cost you a "quarter" for your guys to take the time to properly enter time, but it'll make you a dollar in return revenue from the improved efficency and time management you'll get from it (I know, I've been down this road like you, and after a few of my peers kicked me in the ass about this I came over to this way of thinking. Now I wonder why it took me so long).

Legacy Forum Name: IT Procedures,
Legacy Posted By Username: boudj

Plus it will give you tons of credibility with your customers when you print out the SLA reports and hand it to them every quarter. Customers always like to be reminds why your a good investment to them.

Legacy Forum Name: IT Procedures,
Legacy Posted By Username: icrook

For those of us without ConnectWise, AutoTask, Tiger Paw, etc. how are you having your Tech's Track their Time? Do you use a Time Tracker Tool or have them track it manually?

Legacy Forum Name: IT Procedures,
Legacy Posted By Username: billmccl

If you're using a manual system, you're losing money. Look at CW, TP, or AT as good return on investments. I mean, look at how many hours a week you're losing (on avg) because of improper time tracking of techs? In other words, how many hours a week do you think you are NOT billing because of improper tracking of time by YOU and your techs? Let's just say 3-5 hours a month (this in very conservative figure) at an avg billable rate of $100/hr. This recovery alone will justify buying one of these products.

Legacy Forum Name: IT Procedures,
Legacy Posted By Username: boudj

If money is holding you back from using one of the big PSA players, try something small like CommitCRM. We use AutoTask but Commit is actually an awesome product for the money.

Legacy Forum Name: IT Procedures,
Legacy Posted By Username: djmundy